The world of enterprise gamification has two oft-quoted statistics, and they are quoted all too often. The first often-quoted statistic is that about 70% of employees are disengaged.The second most quoted statistic about gamification comes from Gartner. In late 2012, at the top of the hype cycle about gamification, Gartner came out with a press release titled “80 Percent of Current Gamified Applications Will Fail to Meet Business Objectives Primarily Due to Poor Design”. This is the second most quoted statistic. We decided to take a look at Gartner’s report then and see how it fared.

I’ve noticed that every time I write about enterprise gamification – elearning always comes up.

There are several explanations for why elearning always pops up when we discuss enterprise gamification. The main one is that it simply works. Elearning works exceptionally well, by driving individual achievement through the use of completion game mechanics, feedback and recognition. Something about the pace, the rewards and the way in which most elearning material is pre-prepared trumps class-based learning. This has been recognized by many: the internet is awash with material about elearning for an amazing amount of learning scenarios: school, high-school, university, moocs, and the workplace.

Based on a deeper understanding of human nature, how we learn and what motivates us to do so, it is evident that eLearning that incorporates game mechanics is far more successful. Why? Because people intrinsically love levels, missions and the satisfaction of doing something well. We are even prepared to repeatedly experience the “agony of defeat” to enjoy the “thrill of victory,” the feeling of success, that we have mastered something, that we have surmounted a challenge.

Given these insights, anything perceived as worth doing or worth learning is a perfect candidate for implementing gamification — whether its learning to play an instrument, learning a new language, learning to use the latest Microsoft Office, or even furthering one’s higher education. In fact, here is a closer look at five examples of successful elearning gamification.

According to Docebo, the eLearning market size will reach a $ 51.5 billion market size by 2015, with a growth rate of 7.6%. We collected some of our favorite eLearning game examples. While not all of these examples involve gamification, they are worthwhile considering.

Game-based learning isn’t necessarily eLearning gamification, since learning through a game (an age-old method that is effective since repetition elements and feedback workout our working memory) isn’t what gamification is about. Gamification is using game mechanics (such as completion bars, counters, badges, leaderboards and many other forms of recognition and feedback) to promote actions. Gamification is known to encourage eLearning, but that doesn’t necessarily mean learning through a game.

Remember Edward Packard’s “Choose your own adventure” series back in the late 70’s? First published as the “Adventures of You” series, the series ushered in a wave of interactive gamebooks. The books’ readers would assume the role of the plot’s hero and make choices that would determine the protagonist’s action and plot outcome.
We think that the same logic and emotional drivers should be part of elearning gamification. Here’s how.

What’s all the rage in event and conference management? Gamification. Event managers are told that an event without gamification isn’t done properly. They are told that using gamification in events makes the numbers for attendance, networking and that their social shares will hit the roof.

Is this true?

This post hopes to bring some order into the question of what is gamification for an event – and what real value can be derived from it.

Today’s enterprise gamification takes a broader and more modern view of human motivation, understanding that it goes beyond points, badges and leaderboards, and that intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation. Gamification isn’t a magic potion that makes work mesmerizing. It is much more than points, badges and leaderboard…. Research shows that using game mechanics which carry a meaning and provide a sense of mastery and autonomy can create super-engagement.

The additional “new” here is that gamification can also change culture, communication and performance management. These are the less-cited results of gamification but we thought we’d list them. Using gamification “right” has a lot of other great, unintended consequences. Here are 10 that are perhaps less known, but worth their weight in gold:

If we take a look back at our 10 most popular blogs over the past year, it’s clear that the face of enterprise gamification is changing – and for the good! Gamification was always about bringing out the best in employees but the “how” is changing. We thank you for your feedback and shares, it motivates us to work harder on more blog posts you’ll love to read throughout 2015!

When you launch an enterprise gamification project, you have to create credible and repeated communications with employees.

That isn’t bad news. You should always consider your enterprise gamification projects as an opportunity to communicate with employees about your organization’s goals, rules of conduct, expectations, best practices and knowledge base. This communication is both informative (make sure everyone plays according to the same rules) but it is also habit forming (always enter data into the CRM once you’ve completed a call). If you’re lucky, it can even impact corporate culture.

“I’ve discovered the best business model” someone told me yesterday. “You have people signup so you can send them a report telling them where they messed up. After they get the report that tells them what they are doing wrong, you sell them a service to fix it”.

“Imagine!” he went on to say, “You could get really rich by indicating the faults all humans have and then suggesting how to fix them”.

Thankfully, there is no such service to pinpoint humanity’s flaws, complete with suggestions on how to fix them. I suspect such a service it may be too judgmental – after all, what makes us human is the things we aren’t that good at.